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Filipino Dishes

Filipino cuisine is composed of the cuisines of more than a hundred distinct ethnolinguistic groups found throughout the Philippine archipelago.

Arroz Caldo

Arroz Caldo-Chicken Soup

While chicken soup soothes sick Westerners, Filipinos turn to arroz caldo, a thick chicken rice porridge.

Cooked with ginger and sometimes garnished with a hard-boiled egg, toasted garlic and green onions, this Filipino food is sold in street-side stalls.

If dining al fresco doesn't suit, there's the Via Mare outlets around Manila.

Ilocos Empanada

Ilocos Empanada

Yes, its name reveals its Spanish origins.

But its ingredients are all local.

Grated unripe papaya or bean sprouts, egg and loganiza (pork sausage) are stuffed in the empanada and deep fried, accompanied with a spicy vinegar sauce.

Get this staple Filipino food from stalls beside the cathedrals in Vigan and Laoag.

Bibingka

Bibingka

For many Filipinos, Christmas is marked by the scent of bibingkas cooking at dawn.

These rice cakes are made by soaking the rice overnight, grinding it with a mortar stone and mixing in coconut milk and sugar.

Laborious.

The batter is poured into clay pots with banana leaves, with coals on top and below.

It's garnished with salted eggs, kesong puti (white cheese made from Carabao's milk) and slathered with butter, sugar and grated coconut.

Best eaten hot from weekend markets.

The best one is from Aling Linda at the Sidcor Sunday Market at Centris Mall, Edsa, Quezon City.

For the rest of the week, there's Via Mare or Ferino's Bibingka with branches all over Metro Manila.

Turon

Turon

This fried banana with langka (jackfruit) all sealed in a lumpia wrapper is our version of a sweet spring roll.

It is peddled around the cities and towns for the perfect merienda (mid-morning or afternoon snack).

Pork Barbecue

Pork barbecue

In a country where almost everything is marinated, skewered and grilled in the street corners, everyone has their favorite barbecue meat.

Pork is the most popular.

Cebu is known for barbecue stalls along Larsian Street just off Fuente Osmena Circle.

Manila residents are addicted to that from Ineng's, which has many outlets in Metro Manila, for its big, chunky pieces of pork with a perfect, salty-sweet marinade.

If you haven't tried these dishes, you should now! And enjoy eating it with your family and friends!